Promowest Fest: Interview with Coast Modern

With a Facebook bio that reads “America’s Newest Band,” it might make one wonder what Coast Modern has in store. The duo hails from Los Angeles, California, consisting of Coleman Trapp and Luke Atlas. They are currently opening up for English indie rock band, The Wombats, on their American leg.

The Indie Sound caught up with the SoCal rockers before their performance at A&R Music Bar for PromoWest Fest 2016.

The Indie Sound (TIS): Tell us a little bit about Coast Modern and how you would describe your music for people who haven’t heard of your music.

Coleman: Java Wave.

Luke: We just came up with that today actually. It’s like that feeling when you forget about coffee, and then you remember that coffee exists and then it’s really exciting. It’s the forgetting and the coming back. I think our name also encapsulates the spirit of life.

We’re from L.A., it’s got the coast and the sun. We also try to push the edges of what pop music can be in the modern part of our name.

TIS: How did the two of you meet and form Coast Modern?

Luke: I had just moved to L.A. from Seattle. I had been in L.A. for maybe a week and a mutual friend introduced me to Coleman. We started writing right after that. We liked each other’s music that we’d been doing, but it was like trying to write songs for weird projects.

Coleman: We did that for a few years and then I was over it and went to Colorado. I reconnected with Mother Nature and came out of it alive and ready to rock.

TIS: Who are your guys’ major influences?

Luke: Everything.

Coleman: Beck. Spoon. Those are some of our modern influences.

Luke: A lot of sixties groups influence us as well such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. But really, a lot of it comes from our work as songwriters because we’ve dabbled in a lot of genres and if you put our music into a big stew and stir it around, it’s pretty varied.

TIS: What topics do you guys write most about?

Coleman: Deeper things like life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You know the kind of questions you ask yourself when you’re high.

Luke: Yeah, we like to leave the questions in the songs and not really tell our audience what the songs are about. We’re trying to figure out life ourselves too.

TIS: Have you guys been to Columbus before?

Luke: No, first time. We just got in like ten minutes.

Coleman: We’ve never been to the Midwest before at all.

TIS: With a lot of bands genre-bending nowadays, how do you guys want to market yourselves to fans?

Coleman: I think our whole ethos is more than the music itself. We’re trying to find that magic in life, like looking right below the surface and finding things that excite us and just give color to the day to day existence. I think our live show is fun, and what we try to do with our lives is make it extraordinary.

Luke: Yeah, we also want to be able to connect with people. I think a lot of people can feel alone and isolated. A lot of people listen to music on the internet and might not know who’s making it, but we want to be able to reach people and see how they’ve been impacted by us.